Preview — On Certainty
by Ludwig Wittgenstein

On Certainty

Written over the last 18 months of his life and inspired by his interest in G. E. Moore's defence of common sense, this much discussed volume collects Wittgenstein's reflections on knowledge and certainty, on what it is to know a proposition for sure.

You have an invisible friend who is the most important being in the world and responsible for everything that happens.

Science

The great strength of science is that all its findings are provisional and subject to revision at any moment if new evidence comes in. This is why you should trust it.

Economics

Even 0.1% growth over a few tens of millenia would result in an economy bigger than the known universe. But, although it is impossibleSome interesting things that people are certain about:

Religion

You have an invisible friend who is the most important being in the world and responsible for everything that happens.

Science

The great strength of science is that all its findings are provisional and subject to revision at any moment if new evidence comes in. This is why you should trust it.

Economics

Even 0.1% growth over a few tens of millenia would result in an economy bigger than the known universe. But, although it is impossible in the long term, the critical thing is that the economy should grow, otherwise catastrophe will ensue.

I’m not…certain how I feel about this book. What I mean more precisely is…that…it is impossible for me to be certain how I feel about this book. In fact, it’s impossible for me to really be certain of anything whatsoever. According to Mr. Ludvig Vittgen-shhhhhhhtein, that is.

On Certainty was a rather enjoyable read despite the fact that it contained 676 numbered paragraphs of somewhat repetitive analysis. But if one is as fascinated by philosophy as I am, then it’s no bother. Some would say WittI’m not…certain how I feel about this book. What I mean more precisely is…that…it is impossible for me to be certain how I feel about this book. In fact, it’s impossible for me to really be certain of anything whatsoever. According to Mr. Ludvig Vittgen-shhhhhhhtein, that is.

On Certainty was a rather enjoyable read despite the fact that it contained 676 numbered paragraphs of somewhat repetitive analysis. But if one is as fascinated by philosophy as I am, then it’s no bother. Some would say Wittgenstein is a philosopher’s philosopher because he spends much of his effort debunking traditional philosophy. Here is what I can tease out of this text:

All things that we are certain of, including science, are part of a world-view. World-views are based on language and language games (meaning the “rules” we create for language, in order to understand each other.) All the things that we consider to be “certain” or sure (i.e. True), are actually premises for our language games. In other words, you can point to every fact we are so sure of, “The world is spherical,” or “This is my hand,” and they always end up pointing back to what are assumptions of the language game. Things we believe are so because we defined them in our language game as so. He would say that nothing is ever truly objective because there is always some lower level “fact” that points to another “fact” that points to a “fact” that points back to language. It points back to an assertion, something we are taught. Facts are really socially constructed in our worldview. Certainty is constructed meaning, not objective meaning.

Certainty has no ground. If you say, “I know the earth is round,” how is that different from “I am of unshakeable conviction that the earth is round.” What “I know” really means is that you are convinced of some set of rules you have been taught. LW would say that in the end every “I know” is merely a statement of your relation to an accepted world view, not a factual ground. All our grounds are merely hardened propositions accepted by each of us in order to be welcomed into a taught world-view.

There is no ground beneath her feet.

He compares the world views of different societies as well to further communicate his point. In some tribal society, it may be the shaman who causes rain, not a meteorological phenomenon. Are they demonstrably wrong? Perhaps…but what if…cause and effect were actually wrong. Scientific evidence is all based on cause and effect being true, but it’s impossible to objectively demonstrate cause and effect. Even if something happens a billion times repeatedly…that is not objective proof that it will always happen that way. Or that it happens for the reason we thought it did. The future cannot be predicted. Science can suddenly alter its worldview and then suddenly the facts that were our ground, no longer are. There is no objective ground. No certainty.

Some writers claim that LW actually debunks skepticism because he claims skepticism’s questions (such as “Is this all a dream?”) don’t fit into the language game of a given world view so they are not coherent questions. For a question to be coherent, it must fit into the language game. But I don’t see that. He actually seems like the ultimate skeptic, to me. You just need to reword the questions and ask things like, “If we can’t be certain of anything, because in the end language only points to itself, then how can we be certain we aren’t all just in a dream?”

I will not be able to use "I know" in my vocabulary without first questioning my statement's certainty a hundred times. Would I be certain of my knowledge then? I might not be. Wittgenstein, in this book, uses short philosophical and linguistic reflections on "knowing" as a response to G. E. Moore's 1939 paper, “Proof of an External World”. He asks you to emphasize on "I believe" than "I know" whenever you "don't know", because when you think you "believe", and say that you "know", you actuallyI will not be able to use "I know" in my vocabulary without first questioning my statement's certainty a hundred times. Would I be certain of my knowledge then? I might not be. Wittgenstein, in this book, uses short philosophical and linguistic reflections on "knowing" as a response to G. E. Moore's 1939 paper, “Proof of an External World”. He asks you to emphasize on "I believe" than "I know" whenever you "don't know", because when you think you "believe", and say that you "know", you actually are saying that you "believe" because you really, in actuality, "don't know", as there is no way of actually "knowing" certain things. Makes sense? If it does, Wittgenstein won't disappoint you. ...more

It seems to me that Wittgenstein is trying, with this very late work, to answer the questions raised in his Tractatus in the terminology he employed in his mid-period, that of the language games of the Blue and Brown Books and Philosophical Investigations. With On Certainty, finished two days before the author's death, I think Wittgenstein arrives at surprisingly Kantian conclusions.

Wittgenstein begins both this work and the Tractatus with an inquiry into that of which he can be certain. In theIt seems to me that Wittgenstein is trying, with this very late work, to answer the questions raised in his Tractatus in the terminology he employed in his mid-period, that of the language games of the Blue and Brown Books and Philosophical Investigations. With On Certainty, finished two days before the author's death, I think Wittgenstein arrives at surprisingly Kantian conclusions.

Wittgenstein begins both this work and the Tractatus with an inquiry into that of which he can be certain. In the Tractatus he asks himself what he truly knows. In On Certainty he asks himself what he can and cannot be said to doubt. To doubt everything, Wittgenstein proclaims in the later portion of the text would not actually be doubt at all. To doubt everything would be to no longer be able to act or think because one would no longer believe even in the meaning of the words one uses to express doubt. The language game of social existence could not continue under such circumstances, and doubt is actually a product of the language game, one might say one of the game's subgenres. (Does not Descartes, in doubting even his own existence, not ultimately validate that existence, and even insist on its primacy?)

So one cannot doubt the rules of the game themselves (which is to say “everything”) but one most certainly can doubt within the rules of the game. To see if a proposition can be doubted, says Wittgenstein, look to what supports the proposition's truth-claim. In almost all instances, he holds, it will only be other propositions. Language games rely on themselves as proof. Even mathematics Wittgenstein holds to be a kind of language game-asserting the certainty of its conclusions by insisting on the validity of its own rules. Within a language game, what is true is what is comprehensible according to the rules. Therefor, something can be doubted if said doubt does not make other propositions impossible, (which is to say that the vast majority of propositions can be doubted) but the doubt deployed will (in the vast majority of cases) only end by affirming the rules of the game. (Wittgenstein does here acknowledge, which I don't think the young author of the Tractatus would have, that there are very rare instances when a doubt changes the rules of the game, for instance a momentous scientific “discovery”- something interestingly akin to a Badiouian Event. At any rate, for Wittgenstein, unlike Badiou, the game of meaning simply keeps reinventing itself and imposing its rules on us, even in cases of major changes to the way the game is played. I do think this avowal by Wittgenstein of the possibility of changes to the rules, while valid, gets him in some philosophical trouble. How can the rules not be doubted if doubt can change the rules?)

Wittgenstein distinguishes between “knowledge”, that to which one must subscribe if one is to continue to believe anything, i.e to continue to play the language game, and “certainty” a term that he thinks, if we were to live completely honestly, we would abolish. “I am certain” should, ideally, be replaced with “I believe I know”. Belief is the ultimate justification for knowledge, and there is no ultimate justification for belief, except perhaps for faith, which is spiritual, not scientific, mathematical, or philosophical.

Wittgenstein's distinction between “knowledge” and “certainty” strike me as similar to that of Kant between the phenomenal and noumenal worlds. As with Kant, we must, in On Certainty, think about the world in a way that enables us to keep thinking and acting in the world, whether or not said thinking corresponds to the reality of the world-in-itself. There are major differences between the two ontologies, of course. For Kant, it is the nature of the human mind and senses that determines the shape of our experience, of our phenomenal world. For Wittgenstein, it is the rules of the particular language game that a person is taught to play that determine how a person thinks and acts. He describes a war of cultures as a contest between different language games, each trying, futilely, to persuade the other of its correctness. (Kant's nature versus Wittgenstein's nurture)

Whenever I read Wittgenstein, I sense a repressed fear and, yes, uncertainty. But the nervous energy is palpable in this last work, written as the philosopher literally lay dying. Faced with the immediacy of the absolute uncertainty of death, I think the man clinged to philosophy as both a comfort and an outlet for his dreadful suspicion that life may, in fact, be but a dream....more

What can we be certain of? The only thing Wittgenstein is certain of is that there's something fishy about philosopher G.E. Moore's assertions "I know that that's a tree" or "I know that here is a hand" or "I know that I have never been far above the earth's surface." Wittgenstein is terribly perturbed by these statements but doesn't know quite why. It has something to do with the fact that the only people who ever make such statements are philosophers; the rest of us "know" such things by simplWhat can we be certain of? The only thing Wittgenstein is certain of is that there's something fishy about philosopher G.E. Moore's assertions "I know that that's a tree" or "I know that here is a hand" or "I know that I have never been far above the earth's surface." Wittgenstein is terribly perturbed by these statements but doesn't know quite why. It has something to do with the fact that the only people who ever make such statements are philosophers; the rest of us "know" such things by simply behaving as if they were true. Thus it seems that his gripe is more linguistic than epistemological. That is, for all his puzzling over such statements, he seems actually unconcerned about whether we truly can be certain about anything. He's more concerned about what makes sense to say. And he's very, very concerned about this and very, very dissatisfied with his own attempts to formulate any rules for what's sensibly said. Reading Wittgenstein's year-and-a-half (last of his life) struggle with Moore's assertions is like observing someone who's trying to remember the answer to a crossword clue: he knows the answer -- or he once knew it -- but he can't quite recall it; he answers all the surrounding clues; he's got three out of eight of the letters -- now four; but he just can't complete the puzzle. Wittgenstein's ultimately fruitless pursuit has its lovely and curious moments, and it's somehow endearing, not to mention instructive, to see him in the trenches, sleeves rolled up, at work to the end. ...more

Wittgenstein always fascinates me. He is not easy to read unless you are willing to go into his terrain of mind. He has a different mind from most of us, above, on a meta level of what we call "things in life". This book questions all the things we take for granted in order to live, to the extreme extent of almost being silly. After the questioning, there is not much left to maintain the human life. I wonder how many people can overcome that void.

I love Wittgenstein for, if nothing else, his pithy writing style. I also find him helpful for thinking through my research data in terms of the relationship between certainty, uncertainty, and the production of knowledge. Worth it, even if you haven't read Philosophical Investigations.

i couldn't decide whether this book is for humans or space aliens. i guess it's for both.

wonderful wittgenstein. 90 excruciating pages (676 numbered sections) on whether G. E. Moore was justified in holding up his hand and saying, "I know that here is my hand." the second half is quite creepy to read, as he was dying of cancer while writing it. the dates are on the entries, with the final page written two days before he died.

highlights:127 - how do i know that someone else uses the words "I doi couldn't decide whether this book is for humans or space aliens. i guess it's for both.

wonderful wittgenstein. 90 excruciating pages (676 numbered sections) on whether G. E. Moore was justified in holding up his hand and saying, "I know that here is my hand." the second half is quite creepy to read, as he was dying of cancer while writing it. the dates are on the entries, with the final page written two days before he died.

highlights:127 - how do i know that someone else uses the words "I doubt it" as i do?152 - the propositions which stand fast for me are like the axis of a spinning object210 - does my telephone call to a friend in NYC strengthen my conviction that the earth exists?279 - cars don't grow out of the earth281 - my friend hasn't got sawdust in his head282 - cats don't grow on trees287 - the squirrel does not infer by induction that it will need stores again next winter as well315 - THE game teachers are trying to teach pupils: how to ask questions.341 - propositions that are exempt from doubt are like hinges on which the others turn418 - is my understanding only blindness to my own lack of understanding? it often seems so to me450 - a doubt that doubted everything would not be a doubt616 - would it be unthinkable that i should stay in the saddle however much the facts bucked?

although this is much shorter than Philosophical Investigations, you should probably read PI first, since this was written afterwards and refers to PI occasionally. ...more

Would it be extremely weird of me if I said it was a 'fun' read? As much as saying this amuses me, this was a really funny book, and I mean in a very positive and serious way. First thing Wittgenstein does to you, from the outset, is tear apart your cozy little way of thinking, and 'knowing'. I'll never 'know' anything the way I've known before, or at least I'll think a second more before I say I'm certain of something. Next, as you read and re-read and re-re-read almost every other sentence, yoWould it be extremely weird of me if I said it was a 'fun' read? As much as saying this amuses me, this was a really funny book, and I mean in a very positive and serious way. First thing Wittgenstein does to you, from the outset, is tear apart your cozy little way of thinking, and 'knowing'. I'll never 'know' anything the way I've known before, or at least I'll think a second more before I say I'm certain of something. Next, as you read and re-read and re-re-read almost every other sentence, you'll start getting used to his brusque narration and instantly feel more respect for yourself for putting up and sailing through the initial acclimatising bout of offhand and crazy philosophical quagmire. But you forgive him for it starts as a response to a paper by Moore and now since you're used to his language and style (well as used as you possibly could be), you begin to really enjoy what he's trying to say. And once you reach there, it's all wonderful. ...more

This was an excellent read. Wittgenstein's main works are, of course, the Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations, but some consider On Certainty to be his third major work. Unfortunately, On Certainty was not formally organized by Wittgenstein. It is more or less a collection of notes, which represent Wittgensteinian thought post-PI.

Some readers take Wittgenstein's stance in these notes to be sceptical. I personally don't sympathize with this view. If anything, Wittgenstein is starkly anti-sThis was an excellent read. Wittgenstein's main works are, of course, the Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations, but some consider On Certainty to be his third major work. Unfortunately, On Certainty was not formally organized by Wittgenstein. It is more or less a collection of notes, which represent Wittgensteinian thought post-PI.

Some readers take Wittgenstein's stance in these notes to be sceptical. I personally don't sympathize with this view. If anything, Wittgenstein is starkly anti-sceptical (particularly enlightening is his discussion on 'hinge propositions'). I found Meredith Williams' exegesis to be particularly insightful in understanding Wittgenstein.

Either way, for those of you stuck in Cartesian (Humean) sceptisim, Wittgenstein is definitely worth the effort you put in....more

As recalled, this was my favorite volume of the very many produced by the clever fellows who have made careers out of his. Wittgenstein himself published very little, but an enormous body of works attributed to him have been culled from his correspondences, notebooks and students' notes of lectures and conversations.

On Certainty comes as close as Wittgenstein ever does to being a systematic philosopher rather than just playing at being a skeptic, phenomenologist, speculator or analyst of languagAs recalled, this was my favorite volume of the very many produced by the clever fellows who have made careers out of his. Wittgenstein himself published very little, but an enormous body of works attributed to him have been culled from his correspondences, notebooks and students' notes of lectures and conversations.

On Certainty comes as close as Wittgenstein ever does to being a systematic philosopher rather than just playing at being a skeptic, phenomenologist, speculator or analyst of language. It isn't original, but it is interesting to see how he seems to come to conclusions very similar to those of the transcendental philosophy associated with Immanuel Kant....more

I read Tractatus Logico Philosophicus and On Certainty one after another and I must say that On Certainty is much more enjoyable to read than TLP. At least if you do not have any previous knowledge about philosophy.

I was happy to notice that this book was not so hard to read and gave the reader opportunity to form own opinions. At one point I even noticed that there was a flaw in Wittgenstein's thinking.

If you do not have any or very limited previous knowledge about philosophy and wish to readI read Tractatus Logico Philosophicus and On Certainty one after another and I must say that On Certainty is much more enjoyable to read than TLP. At least if you do not have any previous knowledge about philosophy.

I was happy to notice that this book was not so hard to read and gave the reader opportunity to form own opinions. At one point I even noticed that there was a flaw in Wittgenstein's thinking.

If you do not have any or very limited previous knowledge about philosophy and wish to read Wittgenstein I'd recommend that you start from this one rather than TLP....more

I know I liked On Certainty, but that would be playing the language game properly, and not making a statement of fact, of this I can be certain but not know, of which I can be wrong but still believe...

This book sometimes feel like its a head on collision between philosophy and the everyday. What we can say and its implications within varied contexts, contexts that can never be nailed down. It's almost like what it would be like if an AI computer had a mental breakdown. Good stuff.

At times tough, at times perplexing, at times dull. Its about language, not epistemology but kind of vague epistemic conjecture in undertones. Looks like a soliloquy but a wonderful little masterpiece.

On Certainty was not published until 1969, 18 years after Wittgenstein’s death and has only recently begun to draw serious attention. I cannot recall a single reference to it in all of Searle and one see’s whole books on W with barely a mention. There are however xlnt books on it by Stroll, Svensson, McGinn and others and parts of many other books and articles, but hands down the best is that of Daniele Moyal-Sharrock (DMS) whose 2004 volume “Understanding Wittgenstein’s On Certainty” is mandatoOn Certainty was not published until 1969, 18 years after Wittgenstein’s death and has only recently begun to draw serious attention. I cannot recall a single reference to it in all of Searle and one see’s whole books on W with barely a mention. There are however xlnt books on it by Stroll, Svensson, McGinn and others and parts of many other books and articles, but hands down the best is that of Daniele Moyal-Sharrock (DMS) whose 2004 volume “Understanding Wittgenstein’s On Certainty” is mandatory for every educated person, and perhaps the best starting point for understanding W, psychology, philosophy and life.

Wittgenstein (W) is for me easily the most brilliant thinker on human behavior of all time and this is his last work and crowning achievement. It belongs to his third and final period, yet it is not only his most basic work (since it shows that all behavior is an extension of innate true-only axioms), but the foundation for all description of animal behavior, revealing how the mind works and indeed must work. The “must” is entailed by the fact that all brains share a common ancestry and common genes and so there is only one basic way they work, that this necessarily has an axiomatic structure, that all higher animals share the same evolved psychology based on inclusive fitness, and in humans this is extended into a personality based on throat muscle contractions (language) that evolved to manipulate others (with variations that can be regarded as trivial). This book, and arguably all of W’s work and all discussion of behavior is a development or variation on this idea.

In the course of many years reading extensively in W, other philosophers, and psychology, it has become clear that what he laid out in his final period (and throughout his earlier work in a less clear way) are the foundations of what is now known as evolutionary psychology (EP), or if you prefer, psychology, cognitive linguistics, intentionality, higher order thought or just animal behavior. Sadly, nobody seems to realize that his works are a vast and unique textbook of descriptive psychology that is as relevant now as the day it was written. He is almost universally ignored by psychology and other behavioral sciences and humanities, and even those few in philosophy who have more or less understood him have not carried the analysis to its logical (psychological) conclusion. His heir apparent, John Searle, refers to him periodically and his work can be seen as a straightforward extension of W’s, but he does not really get that this is what he is doing. I eventually came to understand much of W by regarding his corpus as the pioneering effort in EP, and by starting from his 3rd period works and reading backwards to the proto-Tractatus. It has been extremely revealing to alternate W with the writings of hundreds of other philosophers and evolutionary psychologists (as I regard all psychologists and in fact all behavioral scientists, cognitive linguists and others).

He can be regarded as the pioneer of evolutionary cognitive linguistics—the Top Down analysis of the mind and its evolution via the careful analysis of examples of language use in context to expose the many varieties of language games and the relationships between the primary games of the true-only axiomatic fast thinking of perception and memory and reflexive emotions and acts, and the later evolved dispositional abilities of believing, knowing, thinking etc. that constitute the true or false propositional secondary language games of slow thinking. With this evolutionary perspective, his works are a breathtaking revelation of human nature that has never been equaled.

The failure (in my view) of even the best thinkers to fully grasp W’s significance is partly due to the limited attention On Certainty (0C) and his other 3rd period works have received, but even more to the inability of philosophers and others to understand how profoundly our view of philosophy, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, politics, law, morals, ethics, religion, aesthetics, literature (all of them being descriptive psychology), alters once we accept the evolutionary point of view. The dead hand of the blank slate view of behavior still rests heavily on most people, pro or amateur. Steven Pinker’s brilliant ‘The Blank Slate: the modern denial of human nature’ is highly recommended, even though he has no clue about Wittgenstein and hence of what can be regarded as the first really deep investigation into the foundations of human nature.

To say that Searle has carried on W’s work is not to imply that it is a direct result of W study, but rather that because there is only ONE human psychology (for the same reason there is only ONE human cardiology), that anyone accurately describing behavior must be saying some variant or extension of what W said. I find most of Searle foreshadowed in W, including versions of the famous Chinese room argument against Strong AI. Incidentally if the Chinese Room interests you then you should read Victor Rodych’s xlnt ,but virtually unknown, supplement on the CR—“Searle Freed of Every Flaw”). Rodych has also written a series of superb papers on W’s philosophy of mathematics (i.e., the EP of the axiomatic Primary Language Games (PLG’s) of counting as extended into the endless LG’s of math).

The common ideas (e.g., the subtitle of one of Pinker’s books “The Stuff of Thought: language as a window into human nature”) that language is a window on or some sort of translation of our thinking or even (Fodor) that there must be some other “Language of Thought” of which it is a translation, was rejected by W who tried to show, with hundreds of continually reanalyzed perspicacious examples of language in action, that language is the best picture we can ever get of thinking, the mind and human nature, and his whole corpus can be regarded as the development of this idea. He rejected the idea that the Bottom Up approaches of physiology, psychology and computation could reveal what his Top Down deconstructions of Language Games (LG’s) did. The difficulties he noted are to understand what is always in front of our eyes and to capture vagueness. And so, speech(i.e., oral muscle contractions, the principal way we can interact) is not a window into the mind but is the mind itself, which is expressed by acoustic blasts about past, present and future acts (i.e., our speech using the later evolved Secondary Language Games (SLG’s) of dispositions --imagining, knowing, meaning, believing, intending etc.). Some of W’s favorite topics in his later second and his third periods are the different LG’s of the Inner and the Outer-the epiphenomenality of our mental life and the impossibility of private language. The PLG’s are descriptions of our involuntary, system 1, fast thinking, true only, untestable mental states- our perceptions and memories and involuntary acts, while the evolutionarily later SLG’s are descriptions of voluntary, system 2, slow thinking, testable true or false dispositional (and often counterfactual) imagining, supposing, intending, thinking, knowing, believing etc. He recognized that ‘Nothing is Hidden’—i.e., our whole psychology and all the answers to all philosophical questions are here in our language (our life) and that the difficulty is not to find the answers but to recognize them as always here in front of us—we just have to stop trying to look deeper.

W makes this point throughout his works in countless examples and again his whole corpus can be regarded as the effort to make this clear. After all, what exactly is the alternative? W showed over and over that standard ways of describing behavior (i.e., most of philosophy, and much of descriptive psychology, anthropology, sociology, etc) are either demonstrably false or incoherent. Once we understand W, we realize the absurdity of regarding “language philosophy” as a separate study apart from other areas of behavior, since language is just another name for the mind. And, when W says (as he does many times) that understanding behavior is in no way dependent on the progress of psychology (e.g., “The sterility and barrenness of psychology is not to be explained by calling it a young science”), he is not legislating the boundaries of science but pointing out the fact that our behavior (mostly speech) is the clearest picture possible of our psychology. FMRI, PET, TCMS, iRNA, computational analogs, AI and all the rest are fascinating and powerful ways to extend our innate axiomatic psychology, but all they can do is provide the physical basis for our behavior and extend our EP, which remains unchanged (unless genetic engineering is unleashed to change our EP—but then it won’t be us anymore). The true-only axioms of ‘’On Certainty’’ are W’s (and later Searles) “bedrock” or “background”, which we now call evolutionary psychology (EP), and which is traceable to the automated true-only reactions of bacteria, which evolved and operates by the mechanism of inclusive fitness (IF). See the recent works of Trivers and others for a popular intro to IF or Bourke’s superb “Principles of Social Evolution” for a pro intro.

Beginning with their innate true-only, nonempirical (nontestable) responses to the world, animals extend their axiomatic understanding via deductions into further true only understandings (“theorems” as we might call them, but of course like many words, this is a complex language game even in the context of mathematics). Tyrannosaurs and mesons become as unchallengable as the existence of our two hands or our breathing. This totally changes ones view of human nature. Theory of Mind (TOM) is not a theory at all but a group of true-only Understandings of Agency (UOA a term I devised 10 years ago) which newborn animals (including flies and worms if UOA is suitably defined) have and subsequently extend greatly (in higher eukaryotes). Likewise the Theory of Evolution ceased to be a theory for any normal, rational, intelligent person before the end of the 19th century and for Darwin at least half a century earlier. One CANNOT help but incorporate T. rex and all that is relevant to it into our innate background via the inexorable workings of EP. Once one gets the logical (psychological) necessity of this it is truly stupefying that even the brightest and the best seem not to grasp this most basic fact of human life (with a tip of the hat to Kant, Searle and a few others). And incidentally the equation of logic and our axiomatic psychology is essential to understanding W and human nature (as DMS, but afaik nobody else, points out).

So, most of our shared public experience (culture) becomes a true-only extension of our axiomatic EP and cannot be found mistaken without threatening our sanity. A corollary, nicely explained by DMS and elucidated in his own unique manner by Searle, is that the skeptical view of the world and other minds (and a mountain of other nonsense) cannot really get a foothold, as “reality” is the result of involuntary fast thinking axioms and not testable propositional attitudes.

It became clear to me recently that the innate true-only axioms W is occupied with throughout his work, and almost exclusively in OC, are equivalent to the fast thinking or System One of Tversky and Kahneman (see his “Thinking Fast and Slow”), which is involuntary and unconscious and which corresponds to the mental states of perception and memory, as W notes over and over in endless examples. One might call these “intracerebral reflexes”(maybe 99% of all our cerebration if measured by energy use in the brain). Our slow or reflective, more or less “conscious” (beware another network of language games!) brain activity corresponds to what W characterized as “dispositions” or “inclinations”, which refer to abilities or possible actions, are not mental states, and do not have any definite time of occurrence. But disposition words like “knowing”, “understanding”, “thinking”, “believing”, which W discussed extensively, have at least two basic uses or language games—a peculiar philosophical use by Moore (whose papers inspired W to write OC) which refers to the true-only sentences based on direct perceptions and memory, i.e., our innate axiomatic psychology (‘I know these are my hands’), and their normal use as dispositions, which are acted out and which can become true or false (‘I know my way home’).

The investigation of involuntary fast thinking has revolutionized psychology, economics (e.g., Kahneman’s Nobel prize) and other disciplines under names like “priming”, “framing”, “heuristics” and “biases” Of course these too are language games so there will be more and less useful ways to use these words, and studies and discussions will vary from “pure” System One to combinations of One and Two, but presumably not ever of slow System Two dispositional thinking only, since any thought or intentional action cannot occur without involving much of the intricate network of the “cognitive modules”, “inference engines”, “intracerebral reflexes”, “automatisms”, “cognitive axioms” or “background” or “bedrock” (as W and later Searle call our EP).

Dispositions were (and still commonly are) called “propositional attitudes” but this can be quite misleading, as W and DMS point out. Here, as throughout his works, understanding is bedeviled by possible alternative and consequently often infelicitous translations from W’s often unedited handwritten German notes, with “Satz” being often incorrectly rendered as “proposition”(which in this context is a testable or falsifiable statement) when referring to our psychological axioms, as opposed to “sentence”, which can be applied to our axiomatic true-only statements such as “these are my hands” or “Tyrannosaurs were large carnivorous dinosaurs that lived about 50 million years ago”(and since this is an unavoidable extension of our psychology, what does this imply about creationists?).

Incidentally, regarding the view of W as the major pioneer in EP, it seems nobody has noticed that he very clearly explained several times specifically and many times in passing, the psychology behind what later became known as the Wason Test--now a mainstay of EP research.

The view that even the brightest philosophers do not really grasp the context in which they are operating is perhaps most strikingly supported when they attempt to define philosophy. In recent years I have seen such definitions by two of those I hold in highest regard—Graham Priest and John Searle, and of course they mention truth, language, reality etc., but not a word to suggest it is a description of our innate universal axiomatic psychology. Priest by the way has noted that W was the first to predict the emergence of paraconsistent logic.

This is a slim little book that Wittgenstein wrote toward the end of his life, in his characteristic numbered succinct paragraphs. It's good. Clear, somewhat repetitive (though that's only a plus because you never know when you're missing something in his hyper-compact writing), it tackles the perennial questions of uber-skepticism: can you doubt everything, even the existence of the world and my body?

Does the world exist?

The book was actually written in response to G.E. Moore's landmarkLucid--

This is a slim little book that Wittgenstein wrote toward the end of his life, in his characteristic numbered succinct paragraphs. It's good. Clear, somewhat repetitive (though that's only a plus because you never know when you're missing something in his hyper-compact writing), it tackles the perennial questions of uber-skepticism: can you doubt everything, even the existence of the world and my body?

Does the world exist?

The book was actually written in response to G.E. Moore's landmark articles on the proof of the external world, in which he basically says there are statements that are certainly true (like my hand exists). In On Certainty takes a different view of the matter, however. One, doubt has its limits. If you doubt this world, won't you also have to doubt the very meaning of that sentence? In his own words, "the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt" (P341). Or more emphatically, "A doubt that doubted everything would not be a doubt" (P450).

There are at least two interrelated points important enough for him to keep making with different analogies and phrasings. One is that there is a web or system of beliefs, values, truths (or what we take to be truths at any given time/age) that makes communication possible at all, and by extension, believing, thinking, acting, and even doubting too. He calls it by various names: "a form of life," "language game," "picture of the world," etc. But the one I find most illuminating is his riverbed analogy. Some thoughts/beliefs/values harden into a riverbed in which a river of other thoughts/beliefs/values/etc. can flow. The explanatory power of this analogy lies in its capacity to distinguish between the movement of the waters and the possible shift of the riverbed itself. Which is to say, some thoughts/beliefs/values are fixed as "certain,"providing the background against which communication, thinking, etc. are possible, BUT they may also shift over time. One thinks of those propositions that were held beyond dispute but that we don't hold any longer: the Earth is flat and is at the center of the universe, or more broadly, the literal truths of the worldview espoused by the Bible, for example. And so some propositions are "certain" not because they sound intuitively right—as Moore would have it—but because they are, to use the slightly different analogy of a web, "held fast by what lies around it" (P144).

The second point is a corollary of this: if you keep doubting, you eventually hit rock bottom, the foundation of "language game" and get to propositions that are not justified (e.g. "The world exists"). This is because, as the context/background that makes communication, thinking, and even doubting and justification possible at all, the context/background/system/etc. itself is not justifiable. As skepticism itself is possible within this system, therefore, it follows logically that the moment skepticism doubts it, it destroys itself.

There are two more points worth mentioning here that are related (what points Wittgenstein makes aren't related to one another???). I'm not sure if he made up his mind about this, but he claims that at the bottom of this system is action, or beliefs as shown by actions: "Giving grounds, however, justifying the evidence, comes to an end;—but the end is not certain propositions' striking us immediately as true, i.e. it is not a kind of seeing on our part; it is our acting, which lies at the bottom of the language game"(204). If, for example, you walk down the stairs or pick up a cup, you are essentially showing that you believe they exist. That is, your actions show that you believe in the propositions, "The stairs exist" and "The cup exists." This concept of actions demonstrating beliefs/propositions was quite interesting to me.

Another particularly striking claim is that if you allow for the certainty of mathematical propositions, you have to do the same for empirical propositions, too. And he demonstrates this so elegantly with just one simple and pithy example that I'd hate to not share it. Take the purely mathematical proposition that's beyond doubt, "12 x 12 = 144." Compare it to: "The multiplication '12x12,' when carried out by people who know how to calculate, will in the great majority of cases give the result '144'." If the former is "certain," then logically the latter, too, must be as "certain."

What I like about his way of thinking is that he embraces fuzziness. So talking about the propositions of the language game (those that are hardened into the riverbed) and those less certain ones flowing in the riverbed, he says "there is no sharp boundary" (P318). Or it's always not clear which propositions he is absolutely sure about and those he is not (P673). Though there is an appeal to mega-systems that draw sharp boundaries and as much as we like to believe in them, life is more gray than black or white, with fuzzy boundaries (e.g. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle).

Overall, if you're interested in what one of the philosophical giants of the 20th century has to offer, this is a great starting point. ...more

Epistemology as linguistic analysis. The phrase "I know _" is more appropriately rephrased as "I believe _ to be so", that is, an expression of a degree of certainty regarding a proposition that is dependent on a specific frame of reference. That all judgments of "truth" ultimately rely on some faithful assumption is an important insight. And yet, I'd much rather read about the domain-specificity of skepticism and heuristics à la Nassim Taleb than proceed further down Wittgenstein's rabbit holeEpistemology as linguistic analysis. The phrase "I know _" is more appropriately rephrased as "I believe _ to be so", that is, an expression of a degree of certainty regarding a proposition that is dependent on a specific frame of reference. That all judgments of "truth" ultimately rely on some faithful assumption is an important insight. And yet, I'd much rather read about the domain-specificity of skepticism and heuristics à la Nassim Taleb than proceed further down Wittgenstein's rabbit hole of stifling hypotheticals. There we hear the faint murmurmings of understanding, but find no dynamism of movement. Ayn Rand's criticism of the philosophy of language as sterile and ultimately impotent has some truth to it:(http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/lin...). After all, how many Wittgensteins can dance on the head of a pin? Somewhat thought-provoking, but not really my cup of tea.

"I believe it might interest a philosopher, one who can think himself, to read my notes. For even if I have hit the mark only rarely, he would recognize what targets I had been ceaselessly aiming at."...more

Do we become more or less certain as we get closer to death? In Wittgenstein's case, judging from his notes during his final days, he was open to questioning even the most obvious and trivial facts. The book was published posthumously from notes compiled within his last two years alive in the early 1950s, and did not appear to a broader audience until nearly 20 years after his death.

The text was written mostly, but not exclusively in German. I benefited from having the German and English side-bDo we become more or less certain as we get closer to death? In Wittgenstein's case, judging from his notes during his final days, he was open to questioning even the most obvious and trivial facts. The book was published posthumously from notes compiled within his last two years alive in the early 1950s, and did not appear to a broader audience until nearly 20 years after his death.

The text was written mostly, but not exclusively in German. I benefited from having the German and English side-by-side in the edition I read. It is clearly a work in progress and not complete. The final entry, two days before his death, references the dream time of the other side.

While the text is repetitive and rambling, the subject raised is extremely provocative. Wittgenstein's ability to call into question fact and belief remains relevant in matters of ethics and epistemology.

The editors could have done away with some of the repetition and digressions with little loss to the meaning of the text. On the other hand, the text is very dense and heavy. For every trivial observation or repeated assertion, there is a sentence worth contemplating....more

Wittgenstein’s On Certainty was written as a response to G. E. Moore's 1939 paper, “Proof of an External World.” In this paper, Moore applies what is known as the Moorean shift from modus ponens (if A then B; A, therefore B) to modus tollens (if A then B; not-A, therefore not-B). In particular, Moore offered as proof that there is a world external to our senses (a not-B in this case) by the act of holding up his hand and saying “here is a hand” (a not-A in this case). While Wittgenstein is clearWittgenstein’s On Certainty was written as a response to G. E. Moore's 1939 paper, “Proof of an External World.” In this paper, Moore applies what is known as the Moorean shift from modus ponens (if A then B; A, therefore B) to modus tollens (if A then B; not-A, therefore not-B). In particular, Moore offered as proof that there is a world external to our senses (a not-B in this case) by the act of holding up his hand and saying “here is a hand” (a not-A in this case). While Wittgenstein is clearly impressed by the boldness of Moore’s approach -- implicitly questioning the reasonableness of doubting such a claim -- he suggests a weakness to this claim because it automatically invites the question of how he knows.

Wittgenstein acknowledges that philosophical skepticism -- doubt that a world exists external to our senses -- gains a foothold from the fact that any knowledge claim can be doubted, and every attempt at justification of a knowledge claim can also be doubted. But Wittgenstein argues that any such doubts about existence only work in what he terms a language-game -- a Sprachspeil in German.

However appealing the language-game engaged in by the philosophical skeptic may seem, once we give these propositions a particular context, he asserts that the doubts cast by the skeptic lack the kind of generality that would throw the very existence of the external world into doubt. Only by removing language from all possible contexts, and hence rendering language useless, can philosophical skepticism function. Thus, Moore's "here is a hand" does rebut the skeptic by placing skepticism in the specific context of anatomy.

Wittgenstein makes the very important naturalistic observation that, "doubt comes after belief". No one arrives de novo at a position of philosophical skepticism but rather adopts that position as a part of a set of philosophical beliefs. Any doubt, he asserts, must occur within the context of things undoubted. If something is doubted, something else must be held fast because doubt presupposes that there are means of removing the doubt.Thus, ordinary incredulity about some feature of the world occurs against a background of sequestered beliefs about the world. The genuine skeptic does not doubt that we have any knowledge of the world; far from it, the skeptic presupposes that we do know a good deal about the world. As he states, “a doubt without an end is not even a doubt.”

Communication and rational thought are only possible between people when there is some sort of common ground, and when one doubts such fundamental propositions as “here is a hand,” that common ground shrinks to nothing. Advocates of philosophical skepticism purport to express these doubts within a framework of rational discussion. But Wittgenstein suggests that by doubting too much, they undermine rationality itself, and so undermine the very basis for doubt.

In many ways it can be argued that in On Certainty Wittgenstein does not actually refute skeptical doubts about the existence of an external world so much as he sidesteps them. If two people were to disagree over whether one of them has a hand, it is doubtful whether they could agree on anything that might act as a common ground on which they could debate the matter. Certainty, Wittgenstein would seem to suggest that certainty is not a philosophical position or a choice but rather is the natural result of living and acting in the world. Again, he supports this with a naturalistic observation of how children form their firm beliefs, saying that, "what stands fast does so, not because it is intrinsically obvious or convincing; it is rather held fast by what lies around it." The same he seems to suggest holds for philosophers and the principles of which they are certain.

As the title suggests, On Certainty is a sustained meditation on the philosophical problems surrounding concepts such as “certainty”, “knowledge” and “belief”. Unlike Philosophical Investigations, which Wittgenstein spent several years obsessively polishing and refining (though it was never actually finished), On Certainty is first-draft material jotted down over the last eighteen months of his life. As such it is both fascinating and frustrating to read. Fascinating because of the insights it cAs the title suggests, On Certainty is a sustained meditation on the philosophical problems surrounding concepts such as “certainty”, “knowledge” and “belief”. Unlike Philosophical Investigations, which Wittgenstein spent several years obsessively polishing and refining (though it was never actually finished), On Certainty is first-draft material jotted down over the last eighteen months of his life. As such it is both fascinating and frustrating to read. Fascinating because of the insights it contains and also because it provides a “behind the scenes” glimpse of one of the 20th Century’s greatest philosophers at work. Frustrating because it endlessly circles around the same basic problem, namely that it seems inappropriate to say “I know” in connection with certain propositions (eg, “I have two hands”, “My name is so-and-so”, etc) and yet it seems equally inappropriate to say that I don’t know the truth of such statements. Again and again the same difficulties occur to him, and again and again he turns towards the same (or similar) solutions.

Exasperating though this can be, the journey is still compelling. It vividly illustrates the immense difficulty involved in accurately describing the use of terms like “I know”, and the surprisingly subtle and varied role they play in our lives. Nietzsche once commented that writing should always be “a conquest of oneself” and here we see Wittgenstein engaged in just such a struggle as he fights the temptation to be misled by our ordinary forms of expression. His refusal to give himself an easy time – to let himself off the hook – cannot help but produce admiration.

All this is not to suggest that he simply goes round in circles without getting anywhere. Make no mistake: On Certainty contains important observations about what it is to know something; the grounds (and sometimes the groundlessness) of certainty; the link between knowledge and behaviour; and the very nature of inductive reasoning itself. It is both profound and quietly unsettling as Wittgenstein strips knowledge of its metaphysical pretensions and centres it firmly in the life of the human animal.

Finally, I have to say that for me the book is a strangely poignant experience. After the first 36 pages the entries are dated (beginning at 23 September 1950) and as I read on I couldn’t help ticking off the days he had left to live. The final entry, on 27 April 1951, was written just two days before he died. Here’s the very last section, which illustrates both the originality of his thought and the elegance of his prose:

“But even if in such cases I can’t be mistaken, isn’t it possible that I am drugged?” If I am and if the drug has taken away my consciousness, then I am not now really talking and thinking. I cannot seriously suppose that I am at this moment dreaming. Someone who, dreaming, says “I am dreaming”, even if he speaks audibly in doing so, is no more right than if he said in his dream “it is raining”, while it was in fact raining. Even if his dream were actually connected with the noise of the rain.On Certainty §676...more

Really interesting book. A diary of Wittgenstein's thoughts on a couple of Moore's pieces, on which the latter proved the obvious: "This is my hand," "That is a tree." The aphorisms add up to a complex analysis of thought, belief, knowledge, language games, forms of life, learning, doubt, and what is a mistake is. The basic argument is that for Moore his hand really is certainly his hand, yet Moore's knowledge is not really anything more than his firm conviction in his own belief. All knowledgeReally interesting book. A diary of Wittgenstein's thoughts on a couple of Moore's pieces, on which the latter proved the obvious: "This is my hand," "That is a tree." The aphorisms add up to a complex analysis of thought, belief, knowledge, language games, forms of life, learning, doubt, and what is a mistake is. The basic argument is that for Moore his hand really is certainly his hand, yet Moore's knowledge is not really anything more than his firm conviction in his own belief. All knowledge that we lay claim to is based around unconscious systems of rules (yet note that these are not the rules of a book, but embedded ways that we have mastered - not even we could write them into a rule book) that justify to ourselves what we know. The irony of Moore's argument is that he feels he can offer a proof because his language is so clear (an analytic philosopher who does indeed have written propositions) and his proposition so neatly emerges from its perfect coherence. What is obvious and common-sense to Moore in England might be complete hogwash to someone from a distant community or the Moon. These people haven't spent years playing the same philosophical language games as Moore, and therefore are not "certain" of the same things as Moore is. They may doubt Moore's system to the point where Moore would have to abandon it (the combat of the missionary). Any doubt or error within Moore's system would neet to be written off as a mistake in order not to compromise the premise. When Moore, in the lecture hall, realizes that his hand is really my hand and therefore that his assertion is incorrect, then certainly he was mistaken, as the majority of the time that hand would indeed be his. The most interesting part about this book for me is the discussion of learning and the empirical propositions that aren't really even assertions. Over time what we do builds up into what we "know" - what seems obvious. This obviousness removes doubt from certain portions of our lives. And then we may act. The child doesn't know that he knows what the color red is called. He simply sees red and thinks that it is red because that is what others do, and what he was taught to do, and what his teacher called it yesterday. Upon the landscape of such sedimentations we have forms of life and the language games that occur related back to them....more

I don't much care for the format: the book consists simply of 600-700 numbered aphorisms, or in some cases simply statements, of Wittgenstein's. There is no real structure, though certain statements follow from those which preceded them.

That said, the numbered statements are really interesting and sometimes quite odd while quite logical. Also, as a beginning German student, it's wonderful to have short statements like this in a bilingual edition. Many words are used over and over again, and it pI don't much care for the format: the book consists simply of 600-700 numbered aphorisms, or in some cases simply statements, of Wittgenstein's. There is no real structure, though certain statements follow from those which preceded them.

That said, the numbered statements are really interesting and sometimes quite odd while quite logical. Also, as a beginning German student, it's wonderful to have short statements like this in a bilingual edition. Many words are used over and over again, and it provides excellent practice for reading aloud and thus memorizing new vocabulary.

I know this review says next to nothing useful about Wittgenstein's work itself, but I've never read him before, so I can't speak with any authority about much of anything relating to the content. I do feel that he could explore the linguistic aspect of his assertions in more depth; his discussions of certainty and doubt hinge on the concept of "Sprachspiele" or "language game." So it is a bit frustrating that Wittgenstein fails to discuss the game's significance for statements like "Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius." He asks whether such a statement can be made with any certainty, and yet does not acknowledge the difference between such a statement and "I know that this is my hand." It seems to me that the next step follows naturally: to talk about the fact that what we call "boiling" happens at 100 degrees because we (humans, speakers) decided to call boiling boiling and because we decided to call the temperature at which "boiling" takes place by the measurement "100 degrees." The question of how I know that my hand is my hand or the question of whether a table still exists when no one is looking at it is of a different nature entirely.

Perhaps I am foolish to judge this work as I have; it is a collection of thoughts that dates up to two days before Wittgenstein's death. Maybe he planned to deal with the linguistic issues and never got to it....more

As a Philosophy undergrad, Wittgenstein's writing was refreshingly plain-spoken. So much Modern Western philosophy is poorly written, so much philosophy is poorly written. Which is frustrating because the point is to clearly present some idea.

Anyway, Wittgenstein's numbered series of questions and remarks strikes me as a more appropriate way to render philosophical ideas -- more appropriate than the grammatically confusing literature of all those Modern Western giants. W's writing seems less imAs a Philosophy undergrad, Wittgenstein's writing was refreshingly plain-spoken. So much Modern Western philosophy is poorly written, so much philosophy is poorly written. Which is frustrating because the point is to clearly present some idea.

Anyway, Wittgenstein's numbered series of questions and remarks strikes me as a more appropriate way to render philosophical ideas -- more appropriate than the grammatically confusing literature of all those Modern Western giants. W's writing seems less immediately dense -- that seems to be one of the best aspects. That he delivers ideas in the form of a repetitive series of rhetorical searching questions, followed by a repetitive series of basic logical acknowledgements, and then an attempt to reconcile the two. But never in a very obvious way, one that calls attention to the main points or conclusions as such. Rather, just seeming to be a series of searching questions that W is asking and answering to himself. Sort of like Socratic method -- except that the voice answering the questions doesn't seem so obviously doomed/stupid as the people Socrates quizzed on their beliefs.

On Certainty is one of (probably) many remarks toward Descartes' dream argument. Though it specifically addresses works published by G.E. Moore in the 20th century.

It's great: you start with Descartes (how do I know this isn't a dream?), then Moore (how do I know this is a tree?), and W just tries to refute the epistemology of such remarks (I don't "know" this isn't a dream or that this is a tree; that these things simply *are* allows me a foundation upon which to build actual knowledge).

This book belongs to the last 1 1/2 years of Wittgenstein's life. In 1949, he visited the US at the invitation of Norman Malcolm and stayed at his home in Ithaca, NY. Malcolm goaded Wittgenstein to write about G. E. Moore's famous "defence of common sense." Moore claimed to know a number of propositions for sure. For example, Moore stated in "Proof of the External World" the following:

"Here is one hand, and here is another."

That quote by the way explains the cover with hands on it.

Here are twThis book belongs to the last 1 1/2 years of Wittgenstein's life. In 1949, he visited the US at the invitation of Norman Malcolm and stayed at his home in Ithaca, NY. Malcolm goaded Wittgenstein to write about G. E. Moore's famous "defence of common sense." Moore claimed to know a number of propositions for sure. For example, Moore stated in "Proof of the External World" the following:

"Here is one hand, and here is another."

That quote by the way explains the cover with hands on it.

Here are two other examples from Moore's "Defence of Common Sense":

"The earth existed a long time before my birth."

"I have never been far from the earth's surface."

These quotes are referred to in Wittgenstein's propositions.

It is all first-draft material. Wittgenstein did not live to excerpt and polish.

One of the problems with certainty is that pretty much everyone is certain. I don't meet many people who are not certain. I received a harassing letter on Goodreads a while back from someone who attacked me for believing in the "fantasy" of evolution. He is certain of that. I'm certain of evolution. It's as certain in science as the earth going around the sun.

I think certainty comes down to understanding science. It is our only hope for finding answers. ...more

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.

Described by Bertrand Russell as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating", he helped inspire tLudwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.

Described by Bertrand Russell as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating", he helped inspire two of the twentieth century's principal philosophical movements: the Vienna Circle and Oxford ordinary language philosophy. According to an end of the century poll, professional philosophers in Canada and the U.S. rank both his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations among the top five most important books in twentieth-century philosophy, the latter standing out as "...the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy, appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations". Wittgenstein's influence has been felt in nearly every field of the humanities and social sciences, yet there are widely diverging interpretations of his thought.

“I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again 'I know that that’s a tree', pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: 'This fellow isn’t insane. We are only doing philosophy.”
—
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